The good, the bad and the plain weird... dreams are an intriguing phenomenon that puzzle and intrigue many. In fact, weird dreams seem to be having quite a big year as proven by a mysterious spike in the Google query, “why am I having weird dreams” in April 2021.
The question has naturally also piqued the interest of neuroscientists who have now discovered that strange dreams actually serve an important purpose in your real life. As weird and illogical as they may seem, such dreams help the brain understand daily experiences in a deeper way.
The study, published recently in Cell, was led by neuroscientist Erik Hoel who said that our brain is so great at learning that it is always at the risk of oversimplifying or becoming ‘overfitted.’ Life can be pretty standard sometimes and so, our weird dreams keep us from becoming too fitted to the model of the world, explained Hoel.
Comparing the human brain to artificial intelligence, Hoel suggested that reading fiction may also have same the hallucinatory effect as that of funky dreams. While you can’t induce weird dreams, you could read fiction novels to rescue your brain from the sameness of life!